Otto’s face was buried in a book. I lit up a dandelion, took a puff, and snatched the book away from him.
“Give it back, jerkface!” he said.
The cover featured a pirate ship full of lemmings wearing eye patches and baggy plaid pants. They raised swords to a skull flag. “Lemming Pirates Versus Japan?” I asked. “What’s Japan?”
He took the book away from me. “Japan is a made-up place where kids enslave each other. The lemming pirates are going to Japan to rescue the slave children and turn Japan into a free world.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. No kid would ever want slaves.”
“Leave me alone. It’s just a story. Anyway, Frannie recommended it to me.”
“Liar.” I exhaled dandelion dust in his face.
Otto closed the book in his lap. “It’s true. She woke me up last night and gave it to me. She said I would appreciate it.”
“I would appreciate it too.”
“She said you wouldn’t.”
I picked up my trumpet. “I guess we should be heading to the campfire. I want to talk to Frannie before story time starts.”
“Are you going to ask her out?”
“What makes you think that?”
“You’ve been talking about it forever. I don’t think you should. She’s annoying. Besides, she’ll crush you like a bug. Remember how Leonard could never play board games after they went out last year? Leonard loved board games. He was a board game master,” Otto said.
“Leonard was afraid of Frannie 2. What happened to him doesn’t count.”
The drums faded away as kids headed for story time. I blew a discordant melody into Otto’s ear to let him know I was irritated. He covered one ear with the book. I started feeling bad and lowered the trumpet.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s just an all-around bad idea,” he said.
We shuffled down the hill.
The dandelion crumbled and I pulled another from my pocket. I lit it and turned my gaze to the reddening sky. I thought that all the planets up there must be full of kids like us. Maybe Japan was one of those planets.
When we made it to the center of Umbrella Park, the last drummers were packing up their instruments. They passed dandelions and gave each other high fives.
“Great drumming,” I said.
A girl smiled at me and said, “Hey, it’s Detuned Trumpet Boy!”
A boy with long hair raised his hands and fingered an air trumpet. He made farting noises with his mouth. We laughed about it as we moseyed out of the park.
Otto and I walked near the back. A few toddlers thanked us for the lesson on making carnival costumes that we taught in the schoolroom that morning. “Tomorrow, you’ll learn about scenery,” Otto told them.
I was too preoccupied with Frannie and the planets to respond.
The group dispersed. Half of the kids went to their tree houses, the other half to the campfire. Frannie climbed down the ladder of her tree house and ran to catch up with us. “Hey! How’s it going?” she said.
Otto held up the book. “I’m halfway through,” he said.
Frannie glanced at me and then stared at the ground. Her cheeks reddened. “Guess what? Frannie 2 and I are telling a new story tonight.”
“That’s super awesome,” I said. The Frannies told the best make-believe stories. “It’s good we ran into you too. I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Oh… well… Frannie 2 and I really need to set up props for our story. Can we talk later?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
“See you around!” Frannie waved goodbye before running off.
When she was out of sight, Otto said, “What do you like about her anyway?”
“She’s the prettiest conjoined girl in Kidland.”
“She’ll spit you out and swallow you.”
“It’s none of your business what she does.”
He touched the flesh that connected our hips. “Everything that happens to you affects me equally.”
After story time, the Frannies went off with the other storytellers. They vanished before I get the opportunity to tell them how much I enjoyed their tale. It was about a bird who met an alligator in Kidland’s swamp. They fell in love and lived happily ever after. I felt bad and rejected that Frannie didn’t even wait around to talk, but she was probably eager to celebrate with the other storytellers.
Otto and I tramped through the woods. We were a little too clumsy for rope ladders, so we installed a pulley system that lifted us into our tree house.
We burned candles and smoked a few dandelions. I rubbed their feathery ashes into my palms while Otto played a spooky bedtime song on his pumpkin piano.
“Play your trumpet,” he said.
I shrugged and picked up my trumpet.
Before I blew into the horn, spheres of light exploded in the sky, splitting the night at its seams.
We stood and rushed to the doorway. Out by the swamplands, flames washed over the forest. Otto and I looked at each other, both of us hoping the other would make some call to action.
“We should stay inside,” Otto finally said.
So we pinned a blanket over the doorway, blew out the candles, and cowered in the dark. We were frightened and couldn’t help but cry a little as kids screamed outside, in the burning darkness.
“What do you think it is?” I said.
“I think Kidland is being invaded,” Otto whispered. “Those were spaceships crashing down.”
“What’s invaded mean?” I lowered my voice as well.
He shushed me and took my hand.
Invaded must have been something he read about. It sounded really awful, judging by the nightmare sounds outside. And crazy too. Spaceships only existed in make-believe stories. I buried my head in his shoulder and broke down. “I don’t want to be invaded,” I sobbed. “I don’t want spaceships to be real. All I want I Frannie.”
He wiped snot from my nose. He pressed his slick hand over my mouth. The scariest laughter echoed across Kidland. He cried his head off, and the next few days passed in a blur of panic and whispered rumors.
Chapter Sixteen
I hang from a barbed hook in a large cell with the spider, my brother. He broods in a corner. Headless Frannie is there, and also a girl who looks identical to the old version of Frannie. It must be Frannie’s twin, all grown up into a regular child. “Hey,” I say, “can someone slide this hook out of my ass? I want down from here.”
The cell looks cleaner and more comfortable than the barracks. Windows occupy most of one wall. Ass goblins stare in. I guess we’ll be under constant surveillance.
“The White Angel told us not to take you down,” Frannie says. She’s completely naked. From the waist up, she’s nothing more than a huge pair of lips with two arms hanging from the sides.
“Why not?” I say.
“He’ll come for you when he’s ready,” she says.
“Is my nose still broken?”
“You don’t have a nose anymore.”
“No nose?” At least I can breathe fine, I guess. “How’s Otto doing?”
Frannie purses her giant lips. “He won’t speak to me.”
I stretch my hands behind my back, straining to reach the hook tearing my butt a new one. My right hand finds a thin, leathery thing. “What’s this?” I say.
“Your wings,” the Frannie look-alike says. “Don’t you know you have wings?”
“Wings? Ass goblin wings?”
“Well, they’re pink. And a lot bigger than ass goblin wings.”
I pull my right hand away, repulsed. “Frannie, is it true? Do I have pink wings?”
Her mouth body frowns. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We’re all in this together, and at least you don’t cough up goblin asses.”